They’ve tried to shackle the way their users listen to their digital music collections for years, but with the success of iTunes and Amazon’s DRM free services, the RIAA would seemingly have learned that consumers will not only pay more to own the rights to play their music on any device they want, but they’ll buy more music besides.

But that’s not to say that the RIAA is going to wholly admit they are wrong, or aren’t going to try to defend the provisions of the DMCA that make it wholly illegal to crack DRM. Steven Metalitz, the Washington DC lawyer representing the MPAA and the RIAA, is now answering questions posed by the Copyright Office, which is in the midst of its triennial DMCA review process, in which certain exemptions to cracking DRM might be enacted.

According to Metalitz, it is ludicrous to allow end users to crack DRM of songs and media they have legally purchased, despite the fact that he also asserts that it is unreasonable for copyright owners to be required to keep their DRM servers online forever.

“We reject the view,” he writes in a letter to the Copyright Office, “that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards. No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so.”

You can’t even really argue with logic like that, just boggle at it with a rope of drool pendulously swinging from one corner of the mouth. But this is part of the long, long fight the industry has been fighting to redefine ownership as a mere renting of rights, which can be revoked by them at any time, and which can only be renewed by forking over more money to buy the same media twice.

Reader Comments

Ron

I’m really surprised that they publicly stated this.

We’ve known for years that the Content Cartel doesn’t want a person to own a copy of any media. That they want a person to basically pay every time he watches a movie, listens to a song, or reads a book.

Of course, no customer wants this, which is why I am surprised that they took this stand.

http://kennethlawson.blogspot.com/ Kenneth Lawson

The following is a excerpt from my most recent blog article discussing the Real Networks case and DRM in General;
See the Link to read the entire article;

The continuing saga of Real Networks fight to continue to produce software to rip and store dvd movies on computers has been dealt a several blow, What is means for consumers is that another aspect of consumer rights to use media that they though that they had bought is in the process of being eroded. I say” thought they bought”, is slowly become buy to rent. You only think you own in reality you long term lease the media, subject to their restrictions, are many. Granted that is probably a bit of a extreme senrio, today,,, However, in the future it may become more real in many ways. It is legal to make copies of media for personal backup and archival proposes , But its illegal to make and sell software to allow you to make limited legal copies of your material. How much sense dose that make? it would be like owning a gun and it being illegal to buy the bullets for it, or not being able to buy gas for your car,, both are which are perfectly legal to own and use pretty much as you want to… So why dose the record/movie industries feel they have the right to limit how you can use your media for your own personal use. Your not making copies and sellings them on streetcorners. All one wants to do is make a back up copy of material that they have legally bought and paid for in good faith. Tho have the media companys telling you you own the media,, Yes, you can can make a back-up copy, Oh by the way the software to make decent copy-protected back-ups is illegal and any company that makes it will be sued out of business and their lives runined..
Thanks for buying our products,,